In training combatants such as police officers and soldiers in the use of small arms, it is often desirable to employ methods and equipment to simulate conditions that the combatants might experience in actual combat. When soldiers fire their weapons at an enemy, the enemy usually also has weapons and can return fire. Military combat entails noise, smoke and muzzle flash which impedes combat effectiveness. Thus, firearm training for combat involves more than mere training in static marksmanship since the trainees are in engagement with elusive targets that themselves normally attempt to shoot the trainees.
Efforts have heretofore been made to develop training procedures and equipment to improve survivability of combatants in armed conflict. The most basic method is traditional target practice where a static target is fired upon by trainees with live ammunition. While this is useful in familiarizing trainees with their weapon and in developing good marksmanship, it lacks the dynamics and realism of actual battle. In other words, it only trains the soldier for offensive action against static targets. Actual combat, of course, simultaneously involves both offensive and defensive action since the target is also firing and moving about.
Efforts have been made to improve the realism of combat training through the use of lasers to simulate weapon fire by both trainees and the enemy. Typical of such systems is that described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,487,583. Here combatants are equipped with garments that bear devices for detecting strikes by laser beams. This arrangement allows combatants to shoot at one another so as to hone both offensive and defensive skills. However, this type of system still lacks elements of realism provided by the use of real firearms that involves recoil, noise and heat, and the psychology attendant to the use of real weapons.
It thus is seen that a need has long existed for combat training systems and apparatuses that provide more realistic simulation in the training for combat. It is to the provision of such, therefore, that the present invention is directed.